From big blockbuster events to crossovers between franchises, 2025 is set-up to be a big year for Marvel Comics. Marvel even teased all the major storylines that we are likely to get in 2025 with their Timeslide one-shot they released on the final Wednesday of 2024. In that one-shot a future version of Bronze, a mutant currently part of the Exceptional X-Men cast, showed Bishop and Cable to all the events that led to her future where she was battling War-Lock. From that list shown in Timeslide and the announcements Marvel has made for the new year, 2025 is already taking into shape. With that there are five major storylines or directions that will be what Marvel Comics fans should be keeping an eye on in 2025.
ONE WORLD UNDER DOOM DOMINATES MARVEL UNIVERSE
Marvel Comics is wasting no time in following up on the announcement that Robert Downey Jr. is playing Doctor Doom in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They are showing that as they will be kicking off the One World Under Doom event in February.
This is an event that Marvel Comics set the stage for back in the previous summer during the Blood Hunt event. During that event Doctor Doom successfully usurped Doctor Strange’s position as the Sorcerer Supreme. The timing of this Doctor Doom becoming the Sorcerer Supreme at the end of Blood Hunt coincided with the announcement Robert Downey Jr’s playing the villain.
Since then, the second half of 2024 was about building up Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Doom across the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man, and other titles. And as the One World Under Doom writer, Ryan North, revealed this event is actually a story that has been in development since at least 2023. Speaking how the event starts out North said the following:
“ONE WORLD UNDER DOOM opens after Doom has taken over the world overnight, and there is a mystery in how he did it, how he got everyone to acquiesce to his rule – but there’s also a bigger and more terrifying question: now that he’s taken over the world, what is he going to do with it? And what will the Fantastic Four and the Avengers do to stop him?”
Living up to this teaser, as of now, One World Under Doom is set-up to release its nine chapters on a monthly basis starting February. That means that One World Under Doom will be going through at the summer to beginning of the winter if it stays on a monthly release schedule. That places a question if titles like Avengers and Fantastic Four, and all titles that fall under these two franchises, 2025 will be dominated the One World Under Doom event.
COUNTDOWN TO ULTIMATE INCURSION
As we begin 2025 January will mark ten months until the return of The Maker after his disappearance at the end of Ultimate Invasion #4. This countdown is something the creative and editorial teams for the Ultimate Universe has constantly pushed since The Maker’s disappearance. It’s a return that both the Ultimates and The Maker’s Council have been prepping for as its unknown what form the Ultimate Universe’s previous ruler will return in.
The ten-month mark is something that was emphasized in The Ultimates #8, the first Ultimate Universe comic released in 2025. In that issue the Ultimate Guardians of the Galaxy from the 61st Century painted a very bleak immediate future for The Ultimates and even darker future when The Maker makes his return. Given how far in the future the Guardians of the Galaxy came from their information is something that cast doubt in what the Ultimate Universe heroes can do against The Maker.
This all leaves the countdown that is currently going down creating even greater importance to the events in all the Ultimate Universe comic books. Because sticking to that timeline it would mean the Ultimate Incursion event teased in Timeslide will take place by the end of October. Which would align well to be Marvel’s winter event following the end of One World Under Doom’s conclusion.
Though given that we know from the events of Ultimate Invasion, The Maker is likely to return with even greater power after his battle against Ultimate Kang. And he will return with plenty of people he’ll want revenge on. That could include the heroes of Earth-616 as he made it clear to Reed Richards and the Illuminati he would get his revenge on them in Ultimate Invasion #1. Setting up another collision event between Earth-616 and the Ultimate Universe would get a lot of attention. Especially given the direction the MCU movies are going beyond 2026.
IMPERIAL AND PHOENIX COSMIC EVENT
Towards the end of 2024 Marvel announced a brand new Jonathan Hickman written event titled Imperial. Given the tagline of “Jonathan Hickman presents the end of the beginning…..Nature abhors a vacuum” with a starry night background this is likely a cosmic event. Hickman has constantly integrated Marvel’s cosmic side in his runs on Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men. So, Hickman’s next big event being a cosmic based event is unsurprising.
That said, Marvel didn’t give away any additional information other than the Imperial title and Hickman as the writer. Based on the name it is likely that Hickman will be tackling the political state of the Marvel Universe. This is a side that we’ve seen be a big part of Stephanie Phillip’s Phoenix series. There we’ve seen the major cosmic political powers unite to stop Jean Grey. That led them to turn to Thanos to destroy Phoenix.
Speaking of Thanos, since 2020 we’ve had the tease of a big cosmic event when Thor got a vision of a Thanos controlling zombified versions of Marvel heroes and villains. That is an event Thor has been shown to be concerned about for several years. In the last few years Marvel has also dedicated time to rebuild Thanos through the Infinity Watch story. The payoff is possibly to get to Thor’s Black Winter vision about Thanos.
So, there are at least a few angles that Hickman can go. Whatever direction Hickman does go with Imperial it can certainly to help rebuild the Marvel cosmic corner just as he did the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men before.
CROSSOVER FILLED YEAR FOR X-MEN FRANCHISE
The X-Men’s relationship with crossovers will be eternal. There isn’t a year were we don’t have some X-Men crossover. The X-Men are even entering 2025 in the middle of one between their two major titles. “The Raid on Graymalkin” has seen the Cyclops’ X-Men and Rogues’ Uncanny X-Men saving their own after Doctor Corina Ellis captured members of both teams.
This X-Men and Uncanny X-Men crossover has turned out to be a prelude to a bigger crossover led by Charles Xavier, X-Manhunt. Based on Marvel Comics March 2025 solicitations, the X-Manhunt event will be a month-long event across the majority X-Men ongoing titles.
Based on information released so far, X-Manhunt will be where the X-Men really have to deal with the fallout of Charles Xavier’s decisions. Its something they’ve been avoiding by splitting off the way they did during X-Men: From The Ashes.
That is at least the picture painted for the first three months of 2025. And the crossovers don’t appear to be ending there as the Timeslide one-shot had a list of possible X-Men storylines. That includes several Bishop and Cable experienced such as Ms. Marvel somehow ending up taking part in the original Dark Phoenix Saga and War-lock taking over the United States at some point in the future. That’s on top of the franchise’s involvement in One World Under Doom and other Marvel events.
DIRECTION OF SPIDER-MAN FRANCHISE
When it comes to the Spider-Man franchise it has arguably never been bigger. Spider-Man has evolved to go beyond just being about Peter Parker. In the last decade we’ve seen Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, Felicia Hardy, Mary Jane Watson, and many other Spider-Man characters come into their own. Whether it is leading their own comic books or events.
That said, we are entering 2025 with the Spider-Man franchise being a big unknown? Why is that? Well for a long time Marvel has relied on the Spider-Verse concept to involve the bigger Spider-Man Family together. That doesn’t look like it is changing in 2025 though the Spider-Verse concept has long run its course. It is time for the Spider-Man franchise to do something new.
A fresh start is something we are seeing already as Joe Kelly and John Romita Jr. are officially the new Amazing Spider-Man creative team. Based on what they’ve said for their Amazing Spider-Man run it appears we are going back to the classic Spider-Man direction with a focus on all the supporting cast and villains. This is something we got away with in recent runs that had this bigger direction with one or two key villains as the focus.
But while Amazing Spider-Man is getting a new direction we don’t know what is going on with other characters. It would not be surprising if Miles Morales gets involved in the Ultimate Incursion event. The Timeslide one-shot also teased a story titled “Beware the Spider-.” The full title was blocked by Cable but it looks like it is titled Beware the Spider-Woman. That could very well be the big Spider-Man franchise event in 2025 with Jessica Drew and Gwen Stacy as possible leads.
Source: Marvel: One World Under Doom Announcement, Marvel: Imperial Announcement, Marvel: Imperial Announcement, Marvel: X-Manhunt Announcement, Marvel: Amazing Spider-Man Announcement
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